July 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

thoughtcrime, doublestandards, mandatory youth education centers
by Mr. Falun Gong 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

Murder Essay Homework Upsets Parent SPRINGFIELD, Pa. (AP) -- A high school student's father is calling for disciplinary action against a teacher who assigned his son's summer-school class to write a fictional first-person account of an armed robbery and murder. Students in the class were given two essay options, one of which was to write a 300-word essay on the following topic: ''We only meant to rob the store; we didn't want to kill him.'' ''I think the teacher should be suspended for three days and get some counseling,'' Tom Moore said. ''If they found that my son had written something like this on his own, that's what would happen to him.'' snip http://www.newsday.com/ap/text/national/ap554.htm

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Pantellic acquires PhotoPoint.com
by ceo＠newsletter.photopoint.com 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

Please note, this email is being sent to inform you about important news at PhotoPoint.com. Even if you have opted out of promotional messages, we are required to contact you regarding this important change. Pantellic Acquires PhotoPoint.com *********************************************************** PHOTOPOINT.COM ACQUIRED BY ITS ORIGINAL CREATORS Dear Members, I am very pleased to announce some exciting changes at PhotoPoint.com. Many people have expressed fears about the future of PhotoPoint.com in light of the many closures, layoffs, and changes that are occurring at other photo sites. The recent changes at PhotoPoint.com ensure a long and stable future for the site and your photos. Until now, PhotoPoint.com has been owned and managed by PhotoPoint Corp (USA), but developed and maintained by Pantellic Software Inc. Pantellic was the original creator of the site, and back in 1999, sold the intellectual property of the site to PhotoPoint Corp. Pantellic Software is proud to announce that on July 17th, we re-acquired the rights to the site, allowing us to continue to develop and maintain the site as we have been, but also letting us set the future direction, based upon our daily contact with the membership. You can view our press release at: http://ads.photopoint.com/j/Gateway?source=mo20010718&uid=141965&id=bignews… I would like to apologize for any uncertainty that our members may have experienced during the transition of ownership. Your photos, albums, and memberships were never at any risk of loss. The safety and integrity of our members' photos has always been, and will continue to be, our number one priority. We understand how important your photos are to you. We want to assure our members that we will honour all existing paid memberships and trial accounts. In addition, in appreciation of your patience and loyalty during this period of uncertainty, we will be extending the term of existing paid memberships by two months. In the future, we plan to make the site even better. We know the success of the site hinges on the satisfaction of you, the members of PhotoPoint. We will be counting on your comments and suggestions about our features and services to help us make the right changes and enhancements to the site. We would encourage members to send any constructive feedback or suggestions to suggestions(a)photopoint.com. I apologize for our delays in communicating these events of the past week to you. As you can appreciate, the transition of ownership has been very hectic for us, and during private negotiations, one's ability to make public statements can be limited. I want to personally thank you for your loyalty. All of us in the Pantellic Family look forward to continuing to make PhotoPoint.com the greatest and safest place in the world to store and share your photos. Sincerely, Dale Gass CEO, Pantellic Software, Inc. *********************************************************** PHOTOPOINT HOME Share and store your photos in secure online albums. http://ads.photopoint.com/j/Gateway?source=mo20010718&uid=141965&id=mainpag… VISIT MY ALBUMS View and share the photos in your albums today. http://ads.photopoint.com/j/Gateway?source=mo20010718&uid=141965&id=login&r… GALLERY Check out photos from PhotoPoint members around the world. http://ads.photopoint.com/j/Gateway?source=mo20010718&uid=141965&id=gallery… PHOTOTALK Learn about digital photography, get photo tips and tricks and more. http://albums.photopoint.com/j/Gateway?source=mo20010718&uid=141965&id=phot… ********************************************************

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Who can tax a satellite?
by mmotyka＠lsil.com 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

> Auerbach insisted that he was not pushing for a tax on the satellites but > was simply doing his job and trying to determine whether they should be > taxed. > > ``I'm neutral on the whole thing,'' he said. ``My job is to make sure all > property that's taxable gets assessed and I'm going to follow the law. If > the law says its not taxable it's not taxable. If it is taxable I will > assess it.'' > I suppose, as with any racket, whoever has the ability to knock the satellites down or render them inoperable could levy a "tax" on them.

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Your Membership Exchange
by Your Membership Newsletter 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

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The Downside of State Ownership
by Duncan Frissell 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,29887,00.html 'Anarchy Express' to G8 Summit Canceled by French Railway Company Wednesday, July 18, 2001 by Helen Studd and Richard Owen GENOA, Italy A special train chartered by British anti-capitalist activists to transport them to the G8 summit of leading industrial nations in Italy has been cancelled, it emerged Tuesday night. The Globalize Resistance express, which was set to carry 450 protesters to the summit in Genoa, was cancelled by the French national railway, SNCF, protesters said. ****************** I guess they should have stuck with private transportation. DCF ---- Nuke 'em till they glow then shoot 'em in the dark. -- Courtesy of the National Commission for the Preservation of Ancient Right Wing Slogans.

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Special Alert from Stocks.com!
by newsletter＠stocks.com 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

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Re: [isml] Facial-recognition tech has people pegged (fwd)
by Jim Windle 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

There is a very interesting and pretty thorough article on iris recognition in the current (July-August) issue of "American Scientist". The site has an abstract of the article and some links: http://www.americanscientist.org/articles/01articles/Daugman.html Jim Windle -- On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 18:58:11 Eugene Leitl wrote: > >-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a> >______________________________________________________________ >ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 >57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 12:51:40 -0700 >From: DS2000 <ds2000(a)mediaone.net> >To: isml <isml(a)yahoogroups.com> >Subject: [isml] Facial-recognition tech has people pegged > >From CNN, >http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/07/17/face.time.idg/index.html >- >Facial-recognition tech has people pegged > >July 17, 2001 Posted: 1:01 p.m. EDT (1701 GMT) > >By Emelie Rutherford > >(IDG) -- Forget ID badges, passwords and access cards. Pretty soon, to get >in and out of your office you might start using something you can't forget >or misplace: your face. > >Once the stuff of science fiction, facial recognition technology has started >to appear in real-life buildings and public places. Setups consist of >cameras that capture images of people who pose or simply walk by, and >software that matches those pictures with those stored in a database. > >Institutions of all kinds -- such as those that want to protect buildings or >internal networks and banks in need of greater security for ATMs -- have >recently begun to use facial recognition to verify users. Physical access >control will be the main source of revenue for biometrics companies over the >next five years, according to Marlene Bourne, a senior analyst for emerging >semiconductor applications at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cahners In-Stat Group. >Currently, though, it is being used most in casinos (more than 100 across >the country have facial recognition in operation) and neighborhoods (the >city of Tampa uses it in outdoor cameras to spot missing children and >lawbreakers). > >Facial recognition is a technology that has been around for a while. >University scientists have been working on facial recognition for over a >decade, with financial support from the U.S. Defense Department, in an >attempt to find a technology that can spot criminals at border crossings. >Companies began commercializing the technology in the mid 90s. It made >headlines last February, when word got out that authorities used it at Super >Bowl XXXV in Tampa to search for felons and terrorists among the crowd of >100,000 spectators. > >Facial recognition technology falls under the umbrella of biometrics, >technologies that identify people based on features such as faces, hands, >fingerprints and eyes. Electronic readers can be affixed to entryways, >keyboards, laptops and mobile phones. The biometrics market rose from $6.6 >million in 1990 to $63 million in 1999, according to the San Jose-based U.S. >National Biometrics Test Center. And pundits say it will continue to grow >substantially, fueled by companies in need of more advanced security >precautions. Cahners In-Stat Group predicts sales of biometrics will reach >$520 million by 2006. > >While other types of biometrics, such as iris scanning, are even more >accurate than facial recognition (which has a relatively low error rate; >just under 1 percent), facial recognition will probably be accepted more >widely because it is not intrusive. It does not require that the user push, >insert or click on anything. Companies often do not need to install anything >beyond the new software because most already have cameras in place and >pictures of employees on file -- making it cheaper than iris reading setups. > >"Unlike other biometrics, facial recognition provides for inherent human >backup because we naturally recognize one another," says Frances Zelazney, >the director of corporate communications at Visionics, a leading biometric >developer based in Jersey City. "If the system goes down, someone can pull >out an ID with a picture as backup, something you can't do with fingerprint >devices." > >How it works >Visionics' FaceIt software measures a face according to its peaks and >valleys -- such as the tip of the nose, the depth of the eye sockets --which >are known as nodal points. "While a human face has 80 nodal points," says >Zelazney, "we require only 14 to 22 to do the recognition. We concentrate on >the inner region of the face, which runs from temple to temple and just over >the lip, called the 'golden triangle.' This is the most stable because if >you grow beard, put on glasses, put on weight or age, that region tends no >to be affected, while places such as under chin would be." > >FaceIt plots the relative positions of these points and comes up with a long >string of numbers, called a faceprint. The software matches faceprints in >the existing file with those of the people passing in front of the cameras. >Faceprints can also be stored on a smart card that users swipe through a >door without looking into a camera. > >Visionics' main competitor, Littleton, Mass.-based Viisage Technology, has a >slightly different model. Its software compares faces to 128 archetypes it >has on record. Faces are then assigned numbers according to how they are >similar or different from these models. > >The use of facial recognition technology upsets some civil libertarians, who >call covertly scanning people's faces an invasion of privacy. Soon after >Tampa installed cameras in nightlife neighborhood Ybor City in June, House >Majority Leader Dick Armey issued a statement blasting the program's >Orwellian aspects. > >"The technology is blind as a bat if you're not in the database," counters >Zelazney. "It's not automatically adding people to the database. It's simply >matching faces in field-of-view against known criminals, or in the case of >access control, employees who have access. So no one's privacy is at stake, >except for the privacy of criminals and intruders." > >-- >Dan S > > >[ISML] Insane Science Mailing List > >- To subscribe: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/isml > > > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com

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Agit Spam and other Citizen Actions [Adobe vs. Rationality]
by Subcommander Bob 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

At 07:23 PM 7/18/01 +0200, Eugene Leitl wrote: > >> How do you picket a virtual store? > >DoS? Oh, I forgot, it's a "crime". Sure, that's harshing on infrastructure. Bad hacker, no coffee. But something like search-engine poisoning is not a crime. Regular ole boycotts are not yet Conspiracies to Interfere With Interstate Trade. Hell, spamming with negative comments is still legal; what if the spam seemed to come from Adobe? What if the agit-spam seemed to come from, say, a near-name like AdobeCo.com? How about a little anonymous stock price rumor mongering? Probably Adobe is resistant to change their course; they prefer to sleep with the likes of the Valenti Mafia... -------- "I'm apoplectic at the sheer chutzpah." ---Stanton McCandlish

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RE: DMCA has pushed me to my limit.
by David Honig 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

At 06:56 PM 7/18/01 +0200, Eugene Leitl wrote: >On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, David Honig wrote: > >> 1. encrypted data is indisttinguishable from uniformly distributed noise > >Yes, but which natural data sources have that signature? None. I was glossing over how you should measure your (e.g., camera's) LSB stats then shape your ciphertext distribution that way. I also didn't mention the work by [???] on detecting stego, and about countermeasures to this detection. I also didn't mention how some stego does not use raw LSBs but interstitial places in complex encodings (e.g., mp3). I was only explaining the principle of how you don't need a 'secret method' to hide the existence of messages. >> 2. LSBs in digitizations of analog signals are noise > >Not uniformly distributed noise, unfortunately. Perhaps somebody should >put hardware entropy generators mixing white noise into multimedia steam >LSBs. People should definitely package stegano decoys into Open Source >streaming multimedia warez. Of course not uniformly distributed, you have to cook any source of noise to distill the pure stuff we covet. >> Stego by itself is much less interesting than stego'd encrypted data >> (with idenntifying headers stripped of course) > >The point of stego is not leaking the information that you're sending >other information. Yes. And as you point out correctly, doing this requires knowing something *clever* about the covertext. But it does not require *secret* algorithms, which is well known for not being robust.

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[isml] Facial-recognition tech has people pegged (fwd)
by Eugene Leitl 18 Jul '01

18 Jul '01

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 12:51:40 -0700 From: DS2000 <ds2000(a)mediaone.net> To: isml <isml(a)yahoogroups.com> Subject: [isml] Facial-recognition tech has people pegged >From CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/07/17/face.time.idg/index.html - Facial-recognition tech has people pegged July 17, 2001 Posted: 1:01 p.m. EDT (1701 GMT) By Emelie Rutherford (IDG) -- Forget ID badges, passwords and access cards. Pretty soon, to get in and out of your office you might start using something you can't forget or misplace: your face. Once the stuff of science fiction, facial recognition technology has started to appear in real-life buildings and public places. Setups consist of cameras that capture images of people who pose or simply walk by, and software that matches those pictures with those stored in a database. Institutions of all kinds -- such as those that want to protect buildings or internal networks and banks in need of greater security for ATMs -- have recently begun to use facial recognition to verify users. Physical access control will be the main source of revenue for biometrics companies over the next five years, according to Marlene Bourne, a senior analyst for emerging semiconductor applications at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cahners In-Stat Group. Currently, though, it is being used most in casinos (more than 100 across the country have facial recognition in operation) and neighborhoods (the city of Tampa uses it in outdoor cameras to spot missing children and lawbreakers). Facial recognition is a technology that has been around for a while. University scientists have been working on facial recognition for over a decade, with financial support from the U.S. Defense Department, in an attempt to find a technology that can spot criminals at border crossings. Companies began commercializing the technology in the mid 90s. It made headlines last February, when word got out that authorities used it at Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa to search for felons and terrorists among the crowd of 100,000 spectators. Facial recognition technology falls under the umbrella of biometrics, technologies that identify people based on features such as faces, hands, fingerprints and eyes. Electronic readers can be affixed to entryways, keyboards, laptops and mobile phones. The biometrics market rose from $6.6 million in 1990 to $63 million in 1999, according to the San Jose-based U.S. National Biometrics Test Center. And pundits say it will continue to grow substantially, fueled by companies in need of more advanced security precautions. Cahners In-Stat Group predicts sales of biometrics will reach $520 million by 2006. While other types of biometrics, such as iris scanning, are even more accurate than facial recognition (which has a relatively low error rate; just under 1 percent), facial recognition will probably be accepted more widely because it is not intrusive. It does not require that the user push, insert or click on anything. Companies often do not need to install anything beyond the new software because most already have cameras in place and pictures of employees on file -- making it cheaper than iris reading setups. "Unlike other biometrics, facial recognition provides for inherent human backup because we naturally recognize one another," says Frances Zelazney, the director of corporate communications at Visionics, a leading biometric developer based in Jersey City. "If the system goes down, someone can pull out an ID with a picture as backup, something you can't do with fingerprint devices." How it works Visionics' FaceIt software measures a face according to its peaks and valleys -- such as the tip of the nose, the depth of the eye sockets --which are known as nodal points. "While a human face has 80 nodal points," says Zelazney, "we require only 14 to 22 to do the recognition. We concentrate on the inner region of the face, which runs from temple to temple and just over the lip, called the 'golden triangle.' This is the most stable because if you grow beard, put on glasses, put on weight or age, that region tends no to be affected, while places such as under chin would be." FaceIt plots the relative positions of these points and comes up with a long string of numbers, called a faceprint. The software matches faceprints in the existing file with those of the people passing in front of the cameras. Faceprints can also be stored on a smart card that users swipe through a door without looking into a camera. Visionics' main competitor, Littleton, Mass.-based Viisage Technology, has a slightly different model. Its software compares faces to 128 archetypes it has on record. Faces are then assigned numbers according to how they are similar or different from these models. The use of facial recognition technology upsets some civil libertarians, who call covertly scanning people's faces an invasion of privacy. Soon after Tampa installed cameras in nightlife neighborhood Ybor City in June, House Majority Leader Dick Armey issued a statement blasting the program's Orwellian aspects. "The technology is blind as a bat if you're not in the database," counters Zelazney. "It's not automatically adding people to the database. It's simply matching faces in field-of-view against known criminals, or in the case of access control, employees who have access. So no one's privacy is at stake, except for the privacy of criminals and intruders." -- Dan S [ISML] Insane Science Mailing List - To subscribe: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/isml Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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